1. Field of the Invention
The following invention relates generally to aperture coverings and specifically to garage doors.
2. Related Art
In the interest of brevity, conventional garage doors will first be explained. There are three garage door types that constitute the bulk of those currently used in the United States. The technical names for each type vary, so the generic names will be used.
The most commonly used door for both commercial and domestic purposes is the sectional door. This door includes horizontal panels which are hinged together along their lengths. These panels may be either solid or may contain windows. The ends of each panel terminate in at least one free turning wheel which travels in a track. A system of counterbalancing is usually employed. One system consists of a cable wound around an overhead drum which is attached to a shaft upon which is a torsion spring. The other end of the cable is attached to the bottom edge of the door. Another system uses extension springs which are fully extended when the door is in the down or closed position with the door down. Parts of these counterbalancing systems can break with explosive force, creating a hazard that could result in severe injury or death. When this door is in the up or open position, it hangs from the track horizontally, overhead and parallel to the garage floor. When it is closed, the track and the drive mechanism remain hanging from the garage ceiling. This precludes the use of this overhead space for storage or recreational purposes.
The California door is the second most common garage door. When closed, this door can appear like a sectional door. This door can be monolithic, however. Since it can be made in one piece, it can have better weatherproof qualities and can possibly be made less expensively than the sectional door The California door pivots as a unit from the open to closed position. When open, the California door is suspended overhead and situated parallel to the garage floor, much like the sectional door. This door can be dangerous. Besides the danger of flying spring parts, if the springs fail, the full weight of the door can guillotine down through the doorway, creating a hazard that could result in serious injury or death. As with the sectional door, the brackets, drives and door itself exclude the fall use of overhead garage space.
For commercial use, the roll up door is one of the more popular designs. It wraps around a counterbalancing spring and is stored in a cylindrical canister above the doorway when not in use. Very little usable garage space is taken by the roll up door mechanism. This would be an ideal door except for two factors: 1) the door must be rolled up tightly, and 2) it is difficult to include windows in a roll up door. With regard to the first issue, to achieve a small storage canister diameter, the door must roll up tightly. Consequently, the individual panels have to be very narrow. These slats are approximately 1 to 2xe2x80x3 wide, as opposed to the 12 to 18xe2x80x3 width common in sectional doors. The narrow slats give the door the appearance of a tambour door, like that commonly used on a roll top desk. Many home owners find this look aesthetically unappealing. With regard to the second issue of windows, the narrow slats also make it difficult to include wide windows in the door like those windows preferred by most homeowners.
While not typically used as a garage door, the prior art teaches a method for covering an aperture with interlocking, track-contained slats that disengage when stored in the aperture open position. The slat design employs minimal counterbalancing mechanisms. This method conserves storage space and eliminates exposure to hazardous counterbalance components, but the minimal use of counterbalancing components does not effectively prevent slat jamming within the track, particularly when heavyweight slats are being moved from the aperture closed to aperture open position.
What is needed is an aperture covering that eliminates the hazardous conditions created by uncontained, exposed, drive and counterbalance components, while minimizing the amount of overhead space encumbered by the stored covering, allowing for panels large enough to contain aesthetically pleasing windows, and still providing sufficient counterbalancing of the aperture cover such that the aperture covering can be opened without jamming. These and other shortcomings of conventional doors are addressed by the present invention.
The present invention is directed to an aperture covering composed of counterbalanced individual interlocking panels that are disengaged when stored. In an embodiment of the invention, an aperture covering includes at least two interconnectable panels, each panel having a surface that defines more than one notch, a storage area for storing the panels when the covering is in an open position, at least one track positioned along a path within which edges of the panels move when the cover is moved from an open to a closed position, and a toothed belt which is positioned in the track and which mates with the panel notches, where the panels are stacked in the storage area and removed one at a time in such a manner that, upon removal of a first panel from the storage area and into the track, the first panel interlocks with a second panel, forcing the second panel from the storage area and into the track, where interlocking and removal of the panels continues until all of the panels are removed or the first panel reaches the end of the track.
In another embodiment, a drive mechanism that exerts force upon one or more cables, track-contained rather than notched belts, is coupled to the panels.
In yet another embodiment, weight counterbalancing can be assisted by track-contained toothed belts, cable and ball drive mechanisms, or other counterbalancing methods.